The HIV epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa affects 2 million children, and is increasing by 5-10% annually . In spite of abysmal social-economic conditions under which these children suffer, 50% of African HIV infected children survive to the age of 2 years and 20% survive 5 years (2-5). Almost all of these HIV infected children suffer from malnutrition, and its onset for some is before the advent of chronic diarrhea or recurrent systemic infection, even during the first year of life while they are still breast fed . Protein kinetics have been found to be markedly abnormal in malnourished children in the few instances they have been studied, but there are no reports of protein kinetics in malnourished HIV infected African children (6-8). We previously developed a practical method of measuring protein kinetics in children with kwashiorkor and acute lower respiratory infection (ALRI) in Malawi, and have applied to a small group of children with maramus, HIV and acute infection.